Press Review

“Aravot” comments on a weekend incident in Gyumri where an angry woman approached Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and accused him of having “deceived” her with promises of economic betterment. The paper says Pashinian’s detractors say the incident was indicative of a changing public mood in Armenia whereas his supporters “started looking for excuses” and even questioning the woman’s sanity. “In fact, there is nothing extraordinary about not just one but thousands of people in a democratic country being unhappy with their leader,” it says in an editorial. “The key thing is that they are able to express that discontent and that the country’s leader is not isolated from it with many barriers.”

Lragir.am discusses the continuing fallout from the latest leaked report about the March 2008 bloodshed in Yerevan which left eight protesters and two police officers. The publication speculates that the leak was the work of those who want to “spare someone responsibility” for those deaths and put the blame on Karabakh generals instead. “Who needed to declare that the shootings in Yerevan were led by a Karabakh general just as Nikol Pashinian was speaking in Stepanakert of a common national agenda and consensus?” it asks. It wonders in this regard why the general in question, Samvel Karapetian, has not been arrested or even indicted over the killings. “And if the Karabakh general did not lead the shootings, then whom are the participants of those events are hiding [from justice?]” it says.

“Hraparak” reports on government efforts to get members of Armenia’s Constitutional Court to resign through lavish financial incentives offered to them. The paper notes that in order to qualify for such perks they will have to step down by October 31. “The authorities’ haste has to do with the issue of ratification of the Istanbul convention,” it claims. “Nikol Pashinian has assured European structures that Armenia will ratify the convention by the beginning of this autumn in return for financial assistance. And since under Armenian law the Constitutional Court must evaluate the convention before it reaches the National Assembly the authorities are worried that the Constitutional Court may declare the convention unconstitutional.”